Cocking

"No clue?" asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the Colonel.

"Now, choose,” he said, drawing his sword with the right hand, and, with the left, by the same motion taking a pistol from his belt and cocking it, but turning the point of one weapon and the muzzle of the other to the ground.

Thus circumstanced, he became the avowed companion of sharpers and gamblers, attended cockings and races […]

"Son of a cocking bastard."